AMERICA IS AWESOME. What makes a country interesting are the things it has that no one else has. I’m not talking about cheese in a can, but in a way I kind of am. Culturally, the American mainstream’s beginnings 100 years ago come off as a weirdo carny sideshow to hardcore European nationalist/militarist/deep folk culture. Founded on the idea of hard-won freedoms, it was valued in America to remind everyone how free you are, to be as weird and fugly as you want to be.
The Grateful Dead came out of a time in America when those freedoms were asserting themselves pretty aggressively in a new slice of society. On a high from getting in a bit of a scrape in WWII perhaps, or maybe the end of the depression, or maybe envious of the decades of jazz being so far beyond anything anyone else was coming up with in style and adventure and social significance, the desire to be the best at freedom was inflamed many with a new vitality, from John Cage to Wavy Gravy. The Dead explored the freedom to make a whole concert sound like one long song, to combine wack disparate styles like bluegrass and show tunes, and to play it with a band where everyone looks like they rob liquor stores.
The second half of the second half of the twentieth century was not quite so righteously simple. Reality sinks in; the feminist project is discovered to be way more complicated than everyone thought; ditto the integration project. The mainstream music gets amazing, and everyone just wants to kind of chill and forget about, uh, whatever, while others are out there fighting for their interests with the zeal of the convert. Yes you are still free to be as weird as you want, but it’s less of a point of honor anymore, and has more to do with class and money. If it wasn’t political, or an exercise in empowerment, it came off as a bit self-indulgent. Phish explored the freedom to write complicated long songs that were blissed out, didn’t mean much of anything, and weren’t about much of anything.
These two bands have always had a similar thread running through them, and their audience was like sourdough, there was always someone baked in who had been there from the beginning, selling nitrous in the parking lot or pancakes with fried dreads. But the differences between them are more striking. Both bands didn’t pay much mind to the sound of their times, at any point in their career. But everything is a product of its time.
The Dead started out as a pop band, with a trippy component that was their signature. They evolved through the late ’60s in the studio into this very gentle rock sound, but onstage they were simultaneously becoming the most slaying, shredding, rip-
But somewhere in the early ’70s, their tolerance for distortion on stage seemed to dissipate. The Wall of Sound PA they designed exacerbated the problem, but was probably a symptom of it, that being, they didn’t rock as hard live anymore. They wanted to hear everything better onstage as they jammed, and needed to turn things down. That flaming guitar, sandpaper drums sound was lost and with it one of the crucial things that made the Dead trailblazers.
Like Phish, their songs were rarely about anything very personal. There wasn’t a lot of intimacy going on in their art. But they found that intimacy in their performances, where they exhibited a total lack of control over the quality of their performance and rarely planned anything. They did genre work on albums like Workingman’s Dead, showing off their many talents as genre work always does, and switching from soft hippies to tough guys. Without following disco or prog rock, they made some amazing music that sounded as if these styles were their own invention. Their incredible musical skills and hard work, and a changing lineup made this possible.
They burned out hard once the ’80s started. They’d always been proud substance abusers and broody; they hated hangers-on, giving them the nickname ‘melons.’ (“Okay, we’ll get a drink, but do all these mels have to come along?”) But hangers-on don’t appear without permission. The Dead seemed to be looking for love and security in their music, a judgement which is in-keeping with their individual backgrounds. They managed to create a community of followers, but that doesn’t fill the love cup quite the way some hope it will.
Phish started out as a house band playing regularly at a bar in Burlington, mixing up nonsense songs designed only to be goofy and funny with the occasional very composed 15-minute song that sounds a bit like a video game where you do yoga. In their studio songwriting they flexed their musical technique to the max; like so much metal it had a lot to do with exciting people with skill, dexterity in playing and writing, and intricate musical tricks like MC Escher. But goofiness, and non-vulnerability prevailed in the lyrics. Listening to a Phish album, I feel that these guys are in no way interested in sharing any dark feelings or complicated feelings.
Live they flexed their ability to show total control, making euphoric guitar solo-powered jams in a song ‘peak’ several times with all performers pushing a wave of intensity over the audience. It felt like the greatest birthday party in the universe even if it was practiced, and sometimes a touch predictable. They were a more sober bunch, if not in consumption then in attitude and personality; they came across as trustworthy baby-sitters playing over the crowd on a flying hot dog, on whereas the Dead did not. Phish turned a corner around 1995 when they tired of their ‘peaks’ and sought a more nuanced, groovy sound; it felt contrived and some fans rightfully felt that the promise of birthday nirvana was not being honoured.
In terms of longevity, I saw Phish in 2010 and they were still hosting the snuggliest fun glow-stick party you could ever desire. I realized that their schtick in jamming is to come back to the beat every four or eight bars. In between, they go far and wide with tempo and meter, but the frat boy in the crowd can count on finding the beat every twelve seconds or so. They reach for emotion with their songwriting, and schmaltz seems to flow out of the can like so much petroleum-based cheese.
The Dead, by contrast, really concentrated on playing frumpy, dowdy, lumpy adult contemp in their later years. They were the first band I went to see, in 1994, and I remember to this day the one or two seconds of real spontaneity that happened that night, in the middle of a jam. The band looked tired, sounded sad, and could only muster the energy to be weird and long. Being weird isn’t enough. And they weren’t even that weird!
But America is still awesome, and compared to anything else in the world that’s been remotely as successful as they have, these two bands are so supremely weird that America should be supremely proud to have them. They took the carry vibe and each in their own way pushed it so far beyond it’s limits it’s hard to contain the sheer volume of quality adventurous music these two bands produced. More than anything these bands are so special because they insisted on doing it their way. They created a section in every venue for fans who wanted to tape the shows, and let no record company or anyone else turn them into uptight pricks who selfishly guard their music.
I read someone famously described the Dead, saying, “those guys look like they kill people.” You might say Phish look like the only thing they could kill is the buzz I get from music that makes me feel tough or badass. But they do host cute parties. There is no question that the thousands of people at Phish shows are having fun. And they are extremely talented musicians. The Dead were really connected to art and the American spirit, cared about it, explored and worked on it, and take us somewhere unique easily. Phish might have played it a little safer with all the humour, but have lasted longer and are still bringing real joy to people. It’s a shame these bands couln’t have existed at the same time, taking turns opening and closing gigs together. Although those gigs would be twelve hours long.
I leave you with a couple of touching portraits of the two driving forces behind these bands.
Trey giving a speech about his experience at drug court:
“I don’t understand entertainment”: